Unmanned vehicles can be used for performing surveillance, reconnaissance, and exploration tasks for military and civilian applications. Unmanned vehicles may be outfitted with a functional payload, such as sensors for collecting data from the surrounding environment. For example, remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicles, which include fixed-wing aircraft and rotary-wing aircraft, can be used to provide aerial imagery of otherwise inaccessible environments.
The design of such unmanned vehicles involves tradeoffs between vehicle size, weight, payload capacity, energy consumption, and cost. Additionally, the vehicle design should provide sufficient functional space for the payload to operate. In some instances, existing unmanned aerial vehicle designs can be less than ideal for providing unobstructed viewing angles for a payload camera, such as when the visual space is obscured by the vehicle frame.